


Sudden Death

by HopeofDawn



Category: Weiss Kreuz, Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Gen, Psychic Abilities, Telepathy, WK/YnM crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schwarz is sent by Estet to collect a budding psychic.  However, time is not on their side...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sudden Death

**Author's Note:**

> Ze Obligatory Legal Stuff: None of these characters are mine. Weiss Kreuz belongs to Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiß, and Yami No Matsuei belongs to Matsushita Youko. For time-wasting purposes only and not for profit, so don't sue, 'kay?

The gate was shut.

Blank and anonymous, it was part of a high walled compound that spoke more eloquently of wealth than any fancy modern toys. No new-minted millionaire lived here; this was old money, the kind that turned even four preternatural assassins into mere petitioners before a wooden gate that bore nothing more than a name.

_Kurosaki. _

Rainwater dripped from leaves, greyish mist wreathing through the trees and winding around ankles. Schuldig shook out a cigarette, lighting it in blithe disregard to the drizzle. //Bets on how long they'll make us wait?//

Crawford kept his attention on the gate, the lenses of his glasses turned opaque and unreadable under the shelter of his black umbrella. "As long as they want, I presume."

Schuldig hunched further into his coat, glancing sidelong at their fourth. The mist softened scars and blurred the edges of dead-white hair and skin, leaving Farfarello a ghostly figure clad in stark black, golden eye shuttered and gleaming in the gloom. Their resident mad Irishman hadn't so much as blinked in the last few minutes as he stared at the wall in their path.

Schuldig gave him an experimental mental poke. //Scent something?//

//Snakes. Pain.// That golden eye blinked slowly, never losing its focus. //Death.//

Not completely unexpected, but... //Snakes?// Schuldig's face sharpened. "Interesting."

Ignoring them, Nagi turned his face up to the clouded sky, rainwater beading on his bangs and trickling down pale skin like tears. He hated assignments like these.

They all sensed the movement long before the gate creaked open, a maidservant behind the door. She bowed deeply, umbrella angled over a carefully blank face. "Please enter. I will show you the way."

Their footsteps crunched as they followed, western shoes scuffing the carefully raked gravel heedlessly. Gardens stretched away on either side, thick foliage hanging overgrown and untrimmed. There was no movement besides their own; the distant *tok* of a water clock the only sound to break the silence.

Schuldig did a quick scan, out of boredom more than any sense of danger. This was nothing more than a babysitting run, after all. Stretching out mental fingers, he slid easily past the stolid thoughts of gardeners, random house help, skimming over uninteresting minds...

_DespairpainPAINhelplessshameandPAIN!_

He wrenched his probe back, slamming up shields. What the hell...?!

Crawford paused, giving him a quick assessing glance. //Problem?//

Now that he knew it was there, he could feel it as they approached the main house. Coiling, strangling despair. Secrets lying shadowed behind the walls...but this darkness had nothing to do with them.

Schuldig shook his head. //No.// Such delicious agony...who would have guessed that this isolated house hid such pain? Maybe this wouldn't be so boring after all.

//Good.//

The maid ushered them inside, past a wide veranda. Crawford and Nagi obediently toed off wet shoes; Schuldig deliberately kicked his into a careless pile before padding onto the tatami. Farfarello stood there, black-clad and booted, and dripped.

Crawford handed his umbrella and overcoat to the waiting maid, and glanced over his shoulder. "Farfarello, stay here." Adding mentally, //Keep watch.//

Schuldig gave him a curious glance as they moved down dark-paneled corridors. //You think that's necessary?//

//Yes.// There was the multileveled shifting of visions behind the quick assurance of Crawford's answer, and painful experience had taught him not to probe further beyond that wall. Schuldig shrugged. Crawford's reasons, as always, remained his own.

They stopped before another screened door and a second waiting maid, clad in a plain kimono and almost identical to the first. She bowed to them and knelt to one side, pulling aside the screen.

They stepped into silence and a waiting darkness.

Schuldig caught Nagi's narrowed glance. //Oo. Scary.//

Nagi's blank expression never changed. //Maybe, but...can't you feel it? The fear?//

//Home sweet home, huh?// Schuldig knelt a half-step behind Crawford, and hoped this wouldn't take long. His knees were already giving him hell. //The kid will feel right at home with us, then.//

Nagi had no answer.

With the quiet scrape of another door, a man entered, moving noiselessly on bare feet. Strangely pale, just short of Farfarello's albino whiteness, he was clad only in a dark-patterned kimono that hung unevenly off of a muscled frame. He stood just inside the meager lamplight, watching them from shadowed, unfocused eyes.

"Yes?"

"Kurosaki-san? I am Brad Crawford." Crawford bowed deeply, hands on knees, keeping the man always on the periphery of his vision. "These are my associates--"

"--I know who you are." Pale lips twisted in distaste. "Reiji was quite insistent that we meet." He moved further into the room, shadows shifting to reveal a pale Adonis face. "But he would not say why. It is only as a favor to him that I agreed to see you at all."

//It seems that Reiji's reputation precedes us. Fucking useless Takatoris...// Schuldig commented.

Only the barest eye-flicker showed that Crawford had heard the comment as he reassessed the situation. Previous plans were picked over, examined, and just as quickly discarded. This called for an entirely new approach.

"We are here for your son--Kurosaki Hisoka."

Nagi sucked in a quiet breath, startled. Schuldig raised an eyebrow in amused surprise. Nothing like putting your cards on the table.

Crawford waited, his attention focused on their reluctant host's reaction. It came soon enough, blunt and unadorned.

"I have no son."

The flat denial did not surprise him. "That is not what we have been told."

"I am not responsible for Reiji's misapprehensions. Whatever he told you was a lie--I have no son, no heir." Kurosaki's face hardened, eyes narrowed on Crawford's stony countenance. "And if I did, I would never allow him to be taken away by gaijin."

"Not even to save his life?" Crawford adjusted his glasses, unfazed by the man standing over him. "Three years of expensive specialists, nurses, and private institutions seem to say otherwise. You've spent a lot of money, Kurosaki-san, on a boy you claim is not your son."

"That is no concern of yours--"

"--because it is a family affair? I agree." Crawford's verbal trap snapped shut.

"The villagers gave us an earful about your 'demon' child, you know," Schuldig added helpfully. "A little oni that can read their minds and see their thoughts..." His smile could have cut glass.

"We were sent because Rosenkreuz has a great deal of experience in helping such children," Crawford interjected smoothly. "This boy. . .we have specialists who could treat his condition. Perhaps even cure it."

Kurosaki turned away, arms folded. "Impossible."

//He's going to throw us out, you know.// Schuldig commented, bored.

The barest shadow of a smirk touched Crawford's face. //You think so?//

//Come on. . .he won't even admit he has a son, much less hand him over. Let's just take the brat and--// He broke off as a sudden flurry of panicked thoughts caught his attention. The sound of running footsteps wasn't far behind, and a hysterical maid in a bloodied kimono burst into the room.

"Kurosaki-sama--the pale foreigner, he. . ." Her face was streaked with tears, decorum forgotten. ". . .he has a knife! He--Kasumi-san. . . "

"Crawford..." Schuldig was up on one knee.

"Go."

Schuldig was on his feet and running, Nagi right behind. //Dammit it all to hell. Farf, you have the world's *worst* timing...//

//What set him off, you think?// Nagi asked worriedly.

//Hell if I know. Not enough Irish in his coffee?// They rounded a corner and saw the blood-smeared walls of the porch, screened doors half-open and askew. The bevy of maids huddled around Farfarello's unfortunate victim shrieked and scattered as they appeared. "Christ. Just what we need."

"Where is he?" Nagi asked, shoving feet into shoes.

Schuldig concentrated, scanning amid the placid grey minds of this place for Farfarello's knife-edged and labyrinthine personality. "Past the garden--this way."

They ran, ignoring paths and trampling flowers as they moved deeper into the mist-shadowed gardens. Farfarello's trail was easy to follow; the red bursts of panic he left in his wake were just as unmistakable as his tracks on the mossy rock and raked sand. After a short chase, the outlines of a outbuilding reared up out of the fog. Traditional as everything else they had seen on the estate, its solid outlines were blunt and forbidding, empty cross-barred windows blank and devoid of light as they approached.

Nagi looked it over, surprised. "Farf's here? Whatever for?"

"Probably because this is where our little psychic package is." Schuldig's eyes were half-lidded as he listened. Farfarello's anticipation hung in the air, along with the saturated reek of years of despair. //Hey, brat. Can you hear me?//

There was no answer. His satisfied smirk slipped, turning into a frown.

"What is it?" Nagi asked worriedly as he watched Schuldig's face.

Schuldig shook his head, suddenly wary. He headed for the half-open door of the building. "Something's wrong."

Worn floorboards creaked in protest under their footsteps as they moved deeper inside. A light switch stood bare against the wooden panels. It had obviously been added at a later date, wiring running raw and exposed along the walls, and Nagi flicked the switch as they passed, to no effect. "Something's fried the lights."

"Huh." Farther in, a hint of ozone still hung in the air. The worn wooden paneling gave way to white-washed walls, meticulously clean and antiseptic. They passed a dropped tray, bottles and syringes scattered on the ground--then the body of a white-uniformed nurse, neck broken. A clean kill by Farfarello's standards.

Their errant madman stood a few feet away, back turned, just inside a doorway.

//Farf?//

He gave them a quick, narrowed glance over his shoulder. Then he moved further inside, clearing the way.

The room was bare; as antiseptic as the halls, and just as inviting. The squared-off bulk of hospital equipment stood in the corner, burned out and silenced, and a single window let in a bare amount of light, washing out the silent form in the narrow, white-sheeted bed.

Nagi moved forward. The boy had been about his age, pale skin and hair proclaiming the family resemblance his father had denied. Dulled emerald eyes stared blindly beyond them from that pared-down face, a single attenuated hand twisted in the sheets in one last spasm. He touched a finger to that hand; the skin was just starting to cool.

"'Observations indicate a high psi-potential empath, along with touch-telepathy, possible clairvoyance and/or telekinesis.' " Schuldig quoted from memory, and snorted. "Guess they forgot to mention the kid's lousy sense of timing." He prodded at the limp form with an index finger.

Farfarello moved over to the cross-barred window, looking out. Watching the shadows move in the mist.

"He's dead?" It was more of a statement than a question as Crawford stepped into the small room. He looked around, unruffled.

"As a doornail," Schuldig confirmed. He eyed the older man. "Something tells me you're not surprised."

Nagi mumbled something snide under his breath. Crawford gave his telepath a faintly amused look. "Would you feel better if I was?"

"Not particularly." Schuldig ran a hand through his haphazard mane of hair. "What a fucking waste of time.... They're not going to be happy we let this one get away."

Looking at the bed and its silent occupant, Crawford shrugged minimally. "They were the ones who sent us to retrieve a terminally-ill recruit. I told them it would be a close thing." He turned away. "Let's go."

Schuldig shrugged and fell into step, Farfarello a few steps behind. As they left the room, Nagi took up the limp hand, tucking it carefully under the blanket. He felt Schuldig's eyes on him.

//What's up, kid?//

"Nothing." He stepped back, looking away from that blank green gaze. //I was just thinking...that Crawford's timing is never off. And...//

//And?//

Nagi shrugged one shoulder, leaving the empty little room behind. //And that maybe... maybe he had better timing than we thought.//


End file.
